Essays and Yard Sales

The first from an article (presumably in The Richmond
Times-Dispatch) which my mum recently sent to me. The
gist is, a woman in Alexandria, VA, is offering five of her
properties in a raffle. One has to pay $100 to enter, and also has
to write an essay - so, it's at once a raffle and a contest, which
apparently it needs to be for legal reasons. A few of the
properties sound nice enough - maybe not ideal, but one, a
124-acre tract along the Potomac, valued at $1.69 million,
wouldn't be a bad haul, either. It's just a thought, but perhaps by
pooling our resources with some other folks, and writing out (in
no more than 75 words, as the contest stipulates) what we'd like
to do with the land, we might appeal to her philanthropic nature.
There's time to bandy the idea about - the contest ends on the
26th of June, 2004, with the winner to be chosen the following
December. There's more info at
http://www.usdreamproperties.com

The other bit, also an article, and also from my mum, comes
from the Parade magazine often inserted with the Sunday
edition of most cities' newspapers. It deals with the subject of
"earth-friendly garage sales," at which one can get, says the
subtitle, "everything from furniture to feed, plastic to plywood,
even a planetarium...much of it is free." These are the handiwork
of material exchange agencies, usually run by state gov't
agencies in an effort to to keep useful goods out of landfills and
to help companies give their materials away. Apparently,
oftentimes the only stipulation is that you have to arrange for the
pick up of the goods, as these agencies don't deliver. This,
obviously, is a huge resource; I'm reminded of the deal I
witnessed on eBay about two and a half years ago, where a
company in New York offered, for no cost, 19 pallets of computer
monitors to whoever would come and get them. Apparently, it's
not unheard of for these companies to pay you to take their
materials, even. It seems that building materials are among the
most common of the goods being given away in these material
exchanges. It would behoove us, then, to look into material
exchange agencies in and around the state where the place to
put our books, and make good music, comes to be located.

I still have a rather longer post to make, too; an excerpt from my
written journal concerning my recent trip to MA and the
subsequent trip to visit my cousin in MD, who has done
something very similar to this, himself. I hope to post this soon.

If anyone else has anything to add, go for it - the list has been
really quiet for a long time. Is anyone else still out there? Is
anyone else still interested?